Bridge over the River Kwai

Kanchanaburi is probably best known as the town closest to the Bridge over the River Kwai. The railway bridge was part of the infamous Death Railway. During World War 2, the Japanese used South East Asian civilians abducted and forced to work by the Japanese and captured Allied soldiers, to supply troops and weapons in the Burma campaign of World War II. During the construction of the Burma Railway, over 100,000 people lost their lives, including 12,000 prisoners-of-war and more than 90,000 civilian labourers. The bridge and river was made famous to North Americans when David Lean's 1957 film 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' came out which centres around one of the line's main engineering feats, the bridge across the Kwae Yai (River Kwai), and tourists starting flocking to Kanchanaburi searching for the bridge. There are memorials, museums, and cemeteries in and around Kanchanaburi related or dedicated to the bridge and the Death Railway.

We took this train from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi but not so much to visit any of the "attractions" related to the bridge or the railway but to go to an elephant sanctuary, and visit Erawan National Park, famous for its tiered waterfalls, scenic hiking trails, nature viewing & swimming. I posted about the elephant sanctuary last time, this post will be about Kanchanaburi, the next about Erawan National Park.

Since we had decided to stay in Kanchanaburi, we read there were floating raft hotels and guest houses on the river in Kanchanaburi. We found a simple place called the Nita Raft House near the old part of town so pretty much no foreigners as they all seemed to be staying in the newer part of town. The main street was nice and even had a few historic buildings. At the end of the street was a Wat with a lovely cafe where all the servers were monks. On the road there we saw a rooster that was high up in a tree...strange. The sunsets from our funky little place was the best part of staying at Nita though, along with all the bats that came out at dusk looking to feed on whatever they were feeding on. It was our home base for a few days as we went out exploring. We found good food and coffee nearby, a pretty cool skywalk, cheap beers, and a really good night market on the Saturday night that seemed to attract many locals. It had great food stalls and not so great local bands playing. We had a blast!Read more